Psychology of love

How does love begin?
According to researches, love begins with these following factors:

  1.  Close relationship is the beginning of love; friendship, and getting to know each other, and then this relationship is developed to another step of  loving and marriage. This kind of relationship gives chance  for them to have more time to get to know each other  by talking and exchanging  their experiences.
  2. Appearance attraction is like the window of heart. Good looking person is more attractive  to  other  people and  is felt in love by others easier than those who are less good looking .
  3. Having similar characters– taste, similarity of ideas, and life styles  can draw two persons close to each other because  these similarities  can help people  make relashiption  faster and easier.

What reasons do the people give when they choose their spouse ?
According to Freud’s theory (Freud) , he said  people decide to choose their spouse with these following reasons:

  1. Having similar character to thier parents. This love is called “anaclitic love” , divided in to two ways ; positive ways and negative way . Positive way is the impression of those who have admirable father or mother, for example, a daughter who has kind and gentle father, she tends to choose kind and gentle man to be her boyfriend. On the contrary, the negative way is opposite to the first way, people tend to choose their loved ones who  are opposite to their father of mother, for example, a son who has fussy mother, he tends to choose girlfriend who is calm and quiet.
  2. Having same character as themselves. This calls narcissistic love . The positive way is someone who decide to love someone who has the similar character to him/her self. Similarity can help people get to know each other better and faster, and bring them more confident. On the contrary, the negative way is different, a person tends to choose someone who is different from him/her, for example, a quiet man may like  joyful, talkative and cheerful girl to fulfill what he lacks. This will bring excitement, and learning for him.
  3. Having same character as their ideal person. This love happens when she/ he meets a person who has exact qualifications to what they dream for, for example, handsome, pretty, rich, good looking, kind and gentle etc.
    1. Elements of love Love can be expressed in three ways : emotion (affect), thought (cognition), and behavior.
    2. Emotion/ affect : is emotion of  loving, liking,  feeling good,   persons will be happy when they meets and  spend time with their boyfriend/ girlfriend.
    3. Thought/ Cognition : is to understand person whom she/ he loves, focusing  on good things, accepting his/ her weakness, seeing her/ him valuable, and respecting.

There is relation between cognition and behavior, this also causes problems when  each element dose not go along. For example,  a man tells his girl that he loves her, but his action is different, he never does anything to show that he loves her, cares for her. This seems what he said is useless.

Period of love
It can be divided in to 3 periods (According to Lasswell’s theory)

  • Period 1  is called  Romantic love, this is promotional period, it is sweetest time, everything looks so good. This period is  about first 3 months to  1 year.
  • Period  2  is called  Logical – Sensible Love. This is reasonable period, you can start to see strong and weak points of   one another.  Understanding and adjusting is needed, then love can be progressed to another step, but the love relationship of many people, on the contrary, is also terminated in this period.
  • Period 3  is called  Lifelong friendship. This is friendship love, it is true, committed and friendship love.  This love is cherished by sharing bad and good experiences together.  

Categories  of love
Love can be divided into various  categories but mainly  into  2 big categories.

  1. Immature love ( This love is immature or poppy love ) This kind of love allows emotion to be influential, they will focus on their  own desire, they  just want someone to fulfil something missing in their heart. Immature love: I love you because I need you
  2. Mature love (It is mature love) It is love of those who are  emotionally mature, reasonable, and patient. It is more active  than passive,  (being giver than receiver).  : Mature love :  I need you because I love you

The characteristics of Mature love

  • Focusing on one’s goodness,
  • Accepting the differences
  • Learning to apologize and forgive
  • Being responsible
  • Caring
  • Good friendship
  • Appropriate expectation